Scam of the century: ‘Renewables’ increase ‘fossil fuel’ demands

Written by Ronald Stein PE, John Shanahan on October 28, 2024. Posted in Current News

In the transition to so-called ‘clean’ and ‘green’ electricity, critical minerals and metals bring new challenges to electricity security

Solar plants, wind farms, and EVs generally require more minerals to build than their ‘fossil fuel’-based counterparts.

A typical electric car requires six times the mineral inputs of a conventional car, and an onshore wind plant requires nine times more mineral resources than a gas-fired plant.

Since 2010, the average amount of minerals needed for a new unit of power generation capacity has increased by 50 percent as the share of wind and solar renewables in new investments has risen.

Our electricity is increasingly dependent on rare earth minerals and metals mined for wind turbines, solar panels, and EV batteries under atrocious slave labor and environmental conditions in other countries that the DOE and bureaucrats ignore.

China controls a stranglehold of 80 percent of the global supply monopoly on rare earth minerals and metals, with the Congo in Africa a 90 percent source of vital cobalt.

On a total component basis for an EV battery, graphite is about 25 to 28 percent of the whole EV battery. Turkey has the largest reserves of graphite, followed by Brazil and China. Together, these three countries accounted for 66 percent of the estimated world graphite reserves.

It should concern everyone that all those “blood minerals” come from mining at locations in the world that are never seen by environmentalists, policymakers, or EV buyers.

For instance, to manufacture one EV auto battery, you must process

25,000 pounds of brine for lithium,

30,000 pounds of ore for cobalt,

5,000 pounds of ore for nickel, and

25,000 pounds of ore for copper.

All told, just one Tesla EV battery requires the processing of more than 500,000 pounds of materials somewhere on the planet.

A battery for a heavy-duty electric truck can weigh up to 16,000 pounds (eight tons), which is 16 times more than the Tesla battery!!!!

A single truck battery requires eight million lbs of earth to be dug up.

Policymakers setting “green” policies are oblivious to the reality that Electricity came AFTER the discovery of oil 200 years ago.

• ALL electrical generation from hydro, coal, natural gas, nuclear, wind, and solar are ALL built with the products, components, and equipment that are made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.

• All EVs, solar panels, and wind turbines are also built with products, components, and equipment made from crude oil derivatives.

• Further, all cars, trucks, excavating equipment, cranes, merchant ships, planes, and trains are also made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.

Our advanced society uses oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil to make fuels for larger jets, ships, and space launches and to make the 6,000 products made from oil that did not exist 200 years ago.

If we weren’t such an advanced society, there would be no need for so-called “big oil.”

We’re over three and a half years into Biden’s presidency, which from the outset promised an “all-government” regulatory onslaught to force a transition away from ‘fossil fuels’ to ‘green’ electricity.

Demand for products made from oil is stressing the supply chain, thus continuously spiking the cost of products and fuels from ‘fossil fuels’ to meet society’s materialistic demands.

Most importantly, there is a lost reality that the primary usage of crude oil  is NOT for the generation of electricity but to manufacture derivatives and fuels, which are the ingredients of everything needed by economies and lifestyles to exist and prosper, i.e., all products that did not exist before the 1800s.

None of the six methods for generating electricity can manufacture anything to support a materialistic society! Electricity can charge an iPhone but cannot make the iPhone. Electricity can make the defibrillator work in the hospital, but it cannot make the defibrillator.

Products that need electricity, such as iPhones, defibrillators, computers, data centers, and X-ray machines, are also dependent on the petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil to make all the parts and components of every method to generate electricity.

Looking back at the history of the petroleum industry, it illustrates that the black cruddy looking crude oil was virtually useless unless it could be manufactured (refineries) into oil derivatives that are now the basis of transportation fuels and the oil derivatives that are the basis of products, such as silicon-based semiconductor chips, plastics, lubricants, and medications, that are essential for supporting modern lifestyles.

“Big oil” only exists because of the wealthier countries being addicted to the products and fuels that are manufactured from ‘fossil fuels’ that make OUR life more comfortable?

Thus, before we chastise “big oil”, we must ask ourselves, “How dare ME to continuously demand the products and fuels made from oil that make MY life more comfortable?”

Rick Amato’s Politics & Profits eight-minute conversation with Ronald Stein is a video conversation on Your America TV that sheds light on the fact that those pursuing ‘net-zero’ emissions may be oblivious to the reality that wind turbines and solar panels do different things than crude oil. “Mandatory Emissions (just in wealthy countries) To Achieve Net-Zero Is A Fool’s Game.”

Adding huge wind turbine blades and solar panels to generate electricity occasionally is the ‘green’ scam of the century, as ‘renewables’ are increasing ‘fossil fuel’ demands, but those so-called ‘renewables’ CANNOT make any products that are the basis of our materialistic world.

See more here americaoutloud.news

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About the authors: Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, energy consultant, speaker, author of books and articles on energy, environmental policy, and human rights, and Founder of PTS Advance, a California based company.

Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure, Co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations”, policy advisor on energy literacy for The Heartland Institute, and The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and National TV Commentator- Energy & Infrastructure with Rick Amato.

Ron advocates that energy literacy starts with the knowledge that renewable energy is only intermittent electricity generated from unreliable breezes and sunshine, as wind turbines and solar panels cannot manufacture anything for the eight billion on this planet.

John Shanahan, Professional Engineer, B.Sc. and M.Sc. from U. of Notre Dame, USA. Dr. of Engineering, Ruhr University Bochum, Germany. Twenty-five years in consulting and public education for all energy sources, related environmental issues, and petroleum by-products for the modern world and problems with policy decision making mainly in the USA and Europe.

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